Valuing Research into
Higher Education:
Advancing knowledge,
informing policy, enhancing
practice
SRHE 50th Anniversary Colloquium
Friday 26 June 2015
CONTENTS
1
Introduction – Professor Jill Jameson, Chair SRHE
3
Foreword – Helen Perkins, Director SRHE
5
Colloquium Programme
6
Keynote: Equality of opportunity: the first 50 years – Professor Simon Marginson Abstract
7
Looking back: Contemporary Reflections on significant research themes
Panel Chair: Paul Johnson
Think Piece on Learning, Teaching and the curriculum – Professor Marcia Devlin
Think Piece on Academic practice, identity and careers – Professor Bruce Macfarlane
Think Piece on the student experience – Professor Mary Stuart
Think Piece on Transnational perspectives on HE and global well-being –
Professor Rajani Naidoo
Think piece on Research on Higher Education Policy – Professor Jeroen Huisman
19 Looking forward: Perspectives from the new generation of leading researchers
Panel Chair: Dr Manja Klemenčič
Think Piece on Going global – Professor Paul Ashwin
Think Piece on Access and widening participation in HE – Professor Penny-Jane Burke
Think Piece on Reflective teaching in Higher Education – Dr Kelly Coate
25 List of Colloquium participants
29 Continuing the conversation and engaging with SRHE
INTRODUCTION
Professor Jill Jameson, Chair SRHE
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political historian, once observed in 1840 that 'When the past no longer
illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness' (Tocqueville, 1901: 824). Echoing such a theme, Ron
Barnett wrote to us in 2011 of the need to ‘reawaken the spirit of the university’, since, as Derrida observed,
‘Spirit is flame’: it needs air to breathe (Barnett, 2011: 153-4). Mike Shattock has similarly reminded us of
Lord (then Sir John) Fulton’s comment in 1964 that the Robbins Report ‘… provided such light in the dark
places of the past that few would regard it as tolerable to be without a continuing scrutiny in future’ (Shattock,
2015:3). In remembering that era of the awakening of research into higher education, this 2015 collection of
‘think pieces’ airs the spirit of fifty years of shared histories in the scholarship of research inquiry within and
into higher education in a 50th Anniversary edition that celebrates the many achievements of research into
higher education as a field.
The Society for Research into Higher Education and its global membership of scholars has nurtured and
developed that field with assiduous endeavour during 1965 – 2015. We have imagined and re-imagined
higher education, both stratified and massified, within and beyond ‘the university’, we have investigated its
students and staff, debated and challenged its learning theories, quality considerations, research agendas,
its complexity and diversity, its national and global rankings, its policies, leadership, management, resourcing,
scholarship and academic practices, its aims, purposes and scope. We have reflected, been inspired,
argued, fought, won and lost many scholarly and personal battles in this process. Yet always, as a learned
society, we have returned to our main purpose: to advance knowledge, to inform policy and enhance
practice in research into higher education across the UK, Europe and the world. It has been an extraordinary
achievement that this research endeavour has endured and looks favourably positioned to expand and
develop further, despite, as Simon Marginson notes below, the ‘formidable and increasing social and political
obstacles to the achievement of greater social equality and the meritocratic dream’ of attainment through
higher education for all. In recognising, as Helen Perkins observes in her Foreword, ‘our core objective of
improving the quality of higher education’, we facilitate for higher education researchers around the world
the illumination and new understandings that are achievable from shared knowledge, rigorous inquiry, critical
discourse and research publication.
Within and beyond the many important debates captured in this volume by leading scholars on inequity,
social mobility, learning and teaching, academic practice and identity, student experience, massification,
marketization, transnational political and economic analysis, higher education policy and diversity, a
common aim emerges. This is the aim, as a learned society, of continuing the relentless scrutiny, initiated
by the Robbins Report, of research into higher education in the present and onwards towards the next fifty
years. We carry forward here the light of multiple scholarly works that represent those critical, rigorous and
meaningful research debates over the last five decades. The memorial celebratory pieces in these pages
act as sentinels of knowledge, past and present, to inspire, awaken, inform and warn us of new and future
developments in higher education. During the events the Society is running this year we chart the history
of advancing knowledge, informing policy and enhancing practice in research into higher education across
the UK, Europe and the world. As Mike Shattock reminds us, ‘The SRHE was born out of the ferment in the
world of British higher education that had been generated by the Robbins Report’ of 1963. Although there
have been many transmutations, ups and downs along the way, that ferment of activity has never ceased.
Long may it continue.
Professor Jill Jameson
Chair, Society for Research into Higher Education
References
Barnett, R. (2011) Being a university. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Tocqueville, A. de (1901) Democracy in America. Volume 2, translated by Henry Reeve.
1
New York: D. Appleton, p. 824 from the original edition of De la démocratie en Amérique (1840, Bruxelles).
The above quotation: 'When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness" is
translated in the 1901 edition: “..as the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man
wanders in obscurity." Shattock, M. (2015) The Society for Research into Higher Education and the Changing World of British Higher
Education: A Study of SRHE over its first 25 years. London: Society for Research into Higher Education.
Biography
Jill Jameson MA (Cantab), MA (Goldsmith’s), MA, PhD (KCL), FRSA, FCMI, FIfL, is Chair of the Centre for
Leadership and Enterprise, Professor in Education Research, Co-Chair of the Research Ethics Committee
and Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Health, University of Greenwich.
She is Lead Guest Editor for the 2015 British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET) Special Edition on
Emerging Technologies and Authentic Learning in Higher Vocational Education and was Guest Editor, with
Professor Sara de Freitas, of the BJET Special Editions (2013) and (2006) on e-Leadership and Collaborative
e-Support for Lifelong Learning. Jill was Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of Greenwich
during 2004-11 and senior management university Director of Lifelong Learning in 2000-2004. Her research,
management and teaching background covers 39 years of experience across all sectors of education, with a
particular focus on post-compulsory, higher education and lifelong learning. Jill has 28 year's experience as a
senior manager and governor in seven different institutions.
An ESRC Peer Review College Member and Fellow of the RSA, Jill is Principal Investigator for the ESRCfunded Higher Vocational Education and Pedagogy (HIVE-PED) Research Seminar Series, was an invited
Member of the Expert Group advising the National Commission for Adult Education and Vocational
Pedagogy, and an International Expert Group Adviser to the Open and Distance Learning Reference group
led by UNISA and the University of Cambridge. Jill was Series Editor of Continuum’s 24 volume book series
on further education and has published five books, including the e-Learning Reader with Sara de Freitas
(2012) and Research in Post-Compulsory Education with Professor Yvonne Hillier. New works include a scholarly research companion on higher education and a research report funded by
the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education with Professor Ian McNay. The Centre for Leadership and
Enterprise (CLE) Jill leads at Greenwich houses Doctoral and Masters’ Postgraduate students and she is
the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Convenor for the international Special Interest Group
Educational Technology Research. Her research interests include leadership, e-learning, post-compulsory
and higher education, lifelong learning, trust, and communities of practice.
2
FOREWORD
Helen Perkins, Director SRHE
Within days of joining the Society as Director in January 2005, at a meeting with the then current Chair of
Trustees, Professor Ron Barnett, to discuss development plans and formulate a set of strategic directions
for the Society over the next five years, he happened to mention, en passant, one additional item that he
thought I should add to my “to–do” list: planning for the Society’s 50th Anniversary in 2015.
At the time planning for the next 5 years, with some ambitious ideas for building the Society’s profile and
augmenting its scale and impact, seemed an ample challenge and so the 50th Anniversary was mentally filed
as a “back burner” issue. In my defence I was younger then: ten years hence still seemed an awfully long
time away, and coming into higher education full time from roles largely outside the academy meant that
I had much to consider and assess before thinking that far ahead. This proved to be one decision I would
have cause to regret as we embarked on planning for this anniversary only in June 2014.
Planning the anniversary events in practical terms was not the issue. At SRHE we are well used to running a
big events programme. What has been challenging has been mapping the Society’s growth and development
since its formation in December 1965 and setting this in the context of enormous change in higher education,
both in the UK and in a global context. This remains work in progress. We are greatly indebted to Professor
Michael Shattock OBE for his contribution to the 50th Anniversary with his research undertaken specifically
for this event on The Society for Research into Higher Education and the changing world of higher education:
a study of SRHE over its first 25 years. In addition to his own immense contribution to both research into
higher education and to the Society, Mike Shattock was also instrumental in setting up the Society’s archive,
kindly hosted through his efforts by the University of Warwick. Mike has also contributed all his own papers
from his long association with the Society to the archive, offering one of the best set of records the Society
has from this period.
This work on researching the Society’s history and the social, economic and political contexts, has proved
a valuable reminder of the purpose and importance of maintaining a well-managed and properly catalogued
archive as an essential research record. We intend to continue to research the history of the Society through
the lens of the research landscape of the time, completing the records for the first 50 years and ensuring
good future maintenance of the archive. Planning for the 75th Anniversary, let alone the 100th, however
remains on the back burner for now.
In choosing an event to mark the 50th Anniversary the Society wanted to focus specifically on achievements
in research and on the Society’s core objective; to improve the quality of higher education through facilitating
knowledge exchange, discourse and publication of research. The idea for this Colloquium was born out of
this choice and in planning and designing the programme we had a fourfold rationale:
• for the Society to bring together a range of individuals from different constituent groups, both within
and outside higher education, at which SRHE could showcase the core issues in research into higher
education over 50 years and examine some aspects of their impact
• to raise the profile and value of research into higher education
• to look forward towards establishing the basis of a research agenda and policy framework for HE for
the next 50 years
• to support the Society’s role as an important and informed source of knowledge and expertise, meeting
the needs and interests of a worldwide community of researchers.
This Colloquium offers a Keynote address which examines critically what has been achieved in the great
goal for higher education in the past 50 years –equality of opportunity.
Our first panel of Contemporary reflections on significant research themes takes five big themes which
have been the focus of considerable research attention and examines the core issues which have emerged;
in learning, teaching and the curriculum, academic practice and identity, the student experience, transnational
3
perspectives and higher education policy.
We conclude by looking forward, drawing on the ideas and Perspectives from the new generation of
leading researchers, hearing their views on some of the key issues for research into higher education,
examining the challenges involved in “going global”, the continuing complexities in achieving access and
widening participation and the importance of critical reflection in all aspects of higher education.
All the Colloquium inputs are designed to be short and focused, backed by thoughtful Think Pieces offering
some broader analysis and suggestions for further reading. This approach provides us with the opportunity
and time for participants at the Colloquium to contribute their knowledge and ideas and add to the debate,
as this is the essential nature and purpose of a learned society in supporting a wide and diverse community
of practice and scholarship. We hope Colloquium participants will make full use of this opportunity, on the
day and in maintaining a continuing dialogue with the Society.
Biography
Helen Perkins has been the Director of SRHE since January 2005.
She came to the Society with a career background in leadership roles in senior management and human
resources within both the public and private sectors, which included manufacturing industry (steel, chemicals
and construction), the financial services sector and management consultancy (Price Waterhouse), and
has held a series of appointments and advisory roles in the higher education sector from the early 1980s
onwards.
Her work in higher education prior to joining SRHE involved appointments on numerous Government and
Higher Education advisory bodies and funding councils over many years, especially between 1982-1995.
These included membership of the Dearing Committee on Polytechnic and College Governance and the
ESRC Committee on the future of the PhD, which led to new guidelines on postgraduate training, serving as
deputy chairman of Staffordshire University Board of Governors pre and post 1992, membership of numerous
University and Polytechnic Committees and Career Service Boards, including the Central Services Unit Board
and selection panels for senior appointments in HE.
Helen was Chairman of the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) from 1985-1992, the employers’
organisation representing businesses large and small, engaged in graduate recruitment and development.
In this capacity she led a major project to establish a framework for best practice in the recruitment and
continuous development of graduates in employment and spearheaded new initiatives designed to foster
effective partnerships between all business sectors and higher education. She also commissioned and
contributed to the AGR report on Graduate Skills in the 21st century.
Helen holds a master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Oxford
and has additional qualifications in Psychometrics and assessment and statistical analysis and research
methodologies.
4
COLLOQUIUM PROGRAMME
10.30-11.30
Registration and Coffee Harvey Goodwin Suite
11.30-11.45
Opening remarks: Helen Perkins Director SRHE
Introduction: Colloquium Chair
Professor Jill Jameson Chair SRHE
Hoare Memorial Hall
11.45-12.30 Keynote Address: The Landscape of Higher Education Research
1965-2015 Equality of opportunity: The first fifty years
Professor Simon Marginson, Professor of International Higher Education,
UCL Institute of Education, University College London
12.30-1.00
Discussion with contributions from Colloquium participants
1.00-2.00 2.00-3.45 Lunch Harvey Goodwin Suite
Contemporary Reflections on significant research themes
Hoare Memorial Hall
2.10-2.20
Learning Teaching and the curriculum
Professor Marcia Devlin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Quality)
Federation University, Australia
2.20-2.30
Academic practice, identity and careers
Professor Bruce Macfarlane, Professor of Higher Education,
University of Southampton
2.30-2.40
Looking back to look forward at the Student Experience
Professor Mary Stuart, Vice Chancellor, University of Lincoln
2.40-3.00
Discussion with contributions from Colloquium participants
3.00-3.10
Transnational perspectives on Higher Education and Global Well-being
Professor Rajani Naidoo, Professor of Higher Education Management,
University of Bath
3.10-3.20
Research on Higher Education Policy
Professor Jeroen Huisman, Professor of Higher Education at Centre for
Higher Education Governance Ghent (CHEGG) Ghent University, Belgium
3.20-3.45
Discussion with contributions from Colloquium participants
3.45-4.30 Refreshment break
Harvey Goodwin Suite
4.30-5.30
Perspectives from the new generation of leading researchers
Hoare Memorial Hall
4.30-4.40
PANEL PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION
Panel Chair: Dr Manja Klemenčič, Fellow and Lecturer in Sociology at
the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University
Yellow
Speakers at the event
4.40-4.50
Going global- opportunities and challenges for HE researchers
Professor Paul Ashwin, Lancaster University
4.50-5.00
Access and Widening Participation in Higher Education
Professor Penny Jane Burke, University of Roehampton, London
& University of Newcastle, Australia
Red
Trustees and Members of the
SRHE Governing Council
5.00-5.10
Reflective Teaching in Higher Education
Dr Kelly Coate, King’s Learning Institute, Kings London
5.10-5.30
Discussion with contributions from Colloquium participants
COLLOQUIUM ENDS
6.00-8.30
6.30
SRHE 50th Anniversary Reception at the House of Lords,
Cholmondeley Room & Terrace
2.00-2.10 PANEL PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION
Panel Chair: Paul Johnson Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Contributions from:
Baroness Sharp of Guildford, SRHE Vice President & Reception host
Professor Sir Robert Burgess, SRHE President
At SRHE events we use
coloured lanyards for our
delegate badges to help
participants pick out specific
individuals they may wish to
ask for help or to speak with
particularly.
The lanyards for this event are
colour coded as follows:
Green
All SRHE executive team and
helpers. Do please seek any
assistance required from these
individuals
Blue
All event participants
May we remind you please
to wear your event badge
throughout the day and also at
the House of Lords Reception,
and that in addition to your
event badge and Invitation
you will also need to carry with
you photo ID in order to be
admitted through the security
at the House of Lords.
Thank you.
5
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Equality of opportunity: The first fifty years
Professor Simon Marginson, Professor of International Higher Education,
UCL Institute of Education, University College London
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century (2014) clarifies the distinction between (1) societies in
which incomes are relatively equal and/or there is a high degree of middle class growth and social mobility,
which includes (albeit in different ways and for rather different reasons) both the Scandinavian countries and
emerging East Asia; and (2) societies like the United States or the UK that are relatively closed in character,
with highly unequal wage structures, growing capital concentrations, and static middle classes that are under
considerable pressure to defend their past-gained economic and status positions. Arguably, in societies of
type (1), in which social stratification is looser, higher education has a greater potential to shape the pattern
of social opportunities and outcomes. Piketty’s contribution is to explain the political economic mechanisms
that shape social openness and closure, in different parts of the world and over time, and to demonstrate
that between the 1950s-1970s the USA and UK were relatively open in terms of elite formation and social
mobility, as open as Denmark, Netherlands or China today. The 1950s-1970s were the high-time of the
formation of modern mass higher education, and of the key ideas that shaped that system formation—above
all in the ‘Californian Model’ the promise of equality combined with excellence in a meritocratic society, as
epitomized in the 1960 California Master Plan, in a related jurisdiction the 1963 Robbins report in the UK,
and the scholarship of Clark Kerr (1963) and Martin Trow (1974). Human capital theory also evolved at its
time, embodying the meritocratic premises that educated attributes constitute productivity, and marginal
productivity drives wages.
We have long known that inequalities in families and in schooling pattern tertiary opportunities, that unequal
social agency plays out again in the transition to work, and that wage determination is shaped by industrial
power and gender stratification, but the assumption that education is accountable for an end-on transition
from higher education to work, within as system in which everyone goes to the starting blocks with an equal
chance, still shapes policy and public expectations—though presumably, City of London bankers and hedge
fund managers no longer look to the universities (if they ever did) before giving themselves another bonus
and sending it to the offshore tax haven of their choice. It has become increasingly difficult to secure greater
greater social equality through higher education, not just because the 1960s equality of opportunity project
has been rearticulated through neo-liberal policy settings, or even because social democracy has faltered in
the English-speaking countries (though Scandinavian equality policies would help), but because as Piketty
shows, capital has accumulated, grossly unequal wages are furthering the concentration process, unequal
wage income for ‘meritorious’ managers turns into unequal traditional wealth in the next generation, and the
private fortunes are protected by finance sector capture of tax and spending policies. In short, there is less
room at the top, the middle cannot grow, and there’s not much the selection function of higher education
alone can do in the face of class and power.
Questions of inequality and education are central to the work of many of us, as emancipationist democrats
as well as educators and researchers. The keynote reviews the approach to equality of opportunity in higher
education, and in relations between education and work, in the context of societies in which there are
formidable and increasing social and political obstacles to the achievement of greater social equality and the
meritocratic dream of fairer social inequality. Biography
Simon Marginson directs the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education, a partnership of three UK
HEIs and eight offshore HEIs, entailing 13 research projects, that will open in October this year. Simon is also
Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, and
the Joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Higher Education. Between 2006-2013 he was Professor of Higher
Education at the University of Melbourne in Australia. For the last 15 years his main inquiry has been a critical
realist theorisation of higher education and globalisation, including the potentials and limits of national policy
and cross-border activity. Current research projects include work on higher education, stratification and
inequality in the context of high participation systems; a comparative study of the public good role of HEIs
in contrasting political cultures; and higher education and science in East Asia. Simon became an Honorary
Fellow of SRHE at Bristol in 2005, and was the 2014 Clark Kerr Lecturer on Higher Education at the
University of California Berkeley. 6
CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS ON SIGNIFICANT
RESEARCH THEMES
Panel Chair: Paul Johnson
Paul has been director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies since January 2011. He is also currently visiting
professor in the department of economics at University College London. Paul has worked and published
extensively on the economics of public policy, with a particular focus on income distribution, public finances,
pensions, tax, social security, education and climate change. As well as a previous period of work at the IFS
his career has included spells at HM Treasury, the Department for Education and the FSA. Between 2004
and 2007 he was deputy head of the Government Economic Service. Paul is currently also a member of the
committee on climate change, of the Actuarial Council of the FRC and of the executive committee of the
Royal Economic Society. He was an editor of the “Mirrlees Review”.
Learning Teaching and the curriculum
Professor Marcia Devlin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Quality)
Federation University, Australia
This abstract covers three aspects of research in learning, teaching and curriculum over the past 50 years:
research issues and their drivers; the impact of this research on policy and practice; and future priorities.
What follows are my observations and thoughts on these aspects, which are shaped by my experience,
beliefs, values and preferences.
My observations relate to: changes in higher education per se; learning theory; the role of discipline-based
research; the nature of research collaborations; dissemination and impact; and possible future priorities.
Changes in higher education per se
One important defining feature of the past 50 years of research in learning, teaching and curriculum has been
that the context of this research has changed so fundamentally. In 2015, we find ourselves on the trajectory
predicted by Trow (1972) of higher education expansion and transformation from elite, through mass, to
universal access.
A massified system has meant that not only are there more students but also, alongside the
internationalisation of higher education, that students are from a far wider range of social and cultural
backgrounds than the cohort who attended Western universities 50 years ago. This has changed research
into learning, teaching and curriculum in these universities significantly and irreversibly. Naturally, this research
has increasingly focused on how to best teach and assess students from a range of diverse backgrounds.
Some research effort has been devoted to understanding the experiences, perspectives and needs of so
called ‘non-traditional’ and international students in a massified, internationalised system and to informing
relevant policy and practice within institutions and beyond. The focus has increasingly been to facilitate
achievement for all students, not just those with the social, cultural and English language capital to
understand the tacit expectations of them and respond accordingly.
Learning theory
Over the past 50 years, a plethora of learning theories, models, concepts and ideas have underpinned higher
education research in learning, teaching and curriculum. Some that have had currency at one time or another
in the past 50 years include, in no particular order: deep and surface learning; Vygotski’s Zone of Proximal
Development; cognitive theory; Andragogy; problem-based learning; inquiry learning; Bloom’s Taxonomy;
cultural historical activity theory; metacognition; Garder’s multiple intelligences; phenomenography;
constructivism; learning styles; behaviourist theory; transformative learning theory; cooperative learning;
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motivational and humanist theories; brain friendly learning and socio-cultural theories. There are many more
but this list is illustrative of both the wide range and the number of those considered appropriate at one time
or another over the past five decades.
It strikes me that, like religion, each theory, model, concept and idea has its believers and non-believers,
its evangelists and critics, its worshippers, if you will, and its nay-sayers. It also strikes me that, like fashion,
some of these theories, models, concepts and ideas have come and gone, and come back into vogue again
at a later time in some form.
As I reflect on this particular observation, I now understand why, despite my experience of research having
grown over the years, I have had increasing difficulty answering the question from newer researchers
interested in examining learning, teaching and/or curriculum, “Which is the best learning theory to use in
higher education research?”
Discipline-based higher education research
There has been an explosion in discipline-based pedagogical research over the past fifty years. I am referring
to the growth in work by colleagues in the disciplines of chemistry, engineering, humanities, media, nursing
and psychology, to name but a few disciplines, to explore and better understand learning, teaching and
curriculum in their particular neck of the academic woods. If it is difficult to keep up with ‘generic’ higher
education research, it is impossible to track specialised work of this kind across disciplines. That said,
discipline-based higher education research in learning, teaching and curriculum has allowed those in
specific discipline fields to benefit from the focused and specialized work.
This work has also brought immeasurable benefit to higher policy and practice more broadly, as well as to
research, with an influx of additional learning theories, models, concepts and ideas, the application of existing
theory within discipline contexts, as well as an increased breadth and depth of methods that are deployed to
conduct, and therefore improve, research in higher education. One example is some of the increased rigour in
higher educational quasi and experimental research that has come about through the application of aspects
of the scientific method.
Research collaborations
Research collaborations have changed considerably over the past half-century. My own experience highlights
some of the shifts. My first collaborative higher education research experience was with a senior academic
with whom I worked for many years at the same institution, who kindly offered me an opportunity to join an
experienced team and then mentored me. This was and is the traditional way. My most recent is a current
collaboration with a junior colleague who lives on the other side of the country, whom I met online via social
media and with whom I worked through email to pull together a geographically dispersed research team
with complementary skills and submit a successful grant application. Our team is multidisciplinary, meets
by teleconference, has debates and makes decisions via email and engages with our communities via social
media. This story is increasingly repeated across countries, languages, disciplines and worldviews.
Dissemination and impact
The role of social and other new media has fundamentally changed not only the way research teams are
formed and work, but also the way in which research outcomes are shared, discussed, understood and
implemented to facilitate change in policy and practice. No longer the purview of an elite few who undertake
the research and a slightly larger group of elite few who read the findings in dense and terribly clever
academic journals, higher education research findings have increasingly reached the masses over time.
In the case of research into learning, teaching and curriculum, this is particularly welcome as it has relevance
to all academic staff who teach, whatever their location or discipline.
The impact of research depends in large part on dissemination and uptake. There will be an increasing need
to ‘cut through’ the volume and noise of the Internet to reach those who need to be reached to change policy
and practice. Those who can do so will be those with sophisticated understandings of: how to select, collect
and curate disparate findings; how to translate findings written in ‘academic-ese’, or in the style and language
familiar to those in one discipline, into plain English; and marketing to particular audiences and doing so in a
digital context.
Future priorities
Given the complexity outlined above, one of the major priorities for the future is to ensure that higher
education research on learning, teaching and curriculum is meaningful and useful to the many and not just
the few. As well as more thinking about facilitating better uptake of findings, this might also necessitate
a focus in the immediate future on so-called twenty-first century learning in higher education. This would
include further exploration of how higher education can assist students and graduates to experience success
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and fulfillment in an increasingly digital and global age such as through digital and media literacy, deep
cross- and multi-cultural understandings and the ability to innovate.
References
Trow, M. 1972. The expansion and transformation of higher education. General Learning Press, New York.
Biography
Marcia Devlin is Professor of Learning Enhancement and the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Learning and Quality)
at Federation University Australia. Her research incorporates both theoretical and practical investigations into
contemporary higher education. She is a nationally and internationally recognised expert in equity, quality,
leadership, teaching and learning, student engagement and digital education. With colleagues, she has won
over $5 million in external competitive research, project and other funds. She has concurrently held Australian
Research Council and Office for Learning and Teaching grants. Professor Devlin is a member of numerous
Editorial and Advisory Boards and is frequently invited to deliver national and international keynote addresses,
workshops and seminars. A broad and extensive publication record in the higher education field incorporates
almost 400 publications, comprising refereed outcomes, commissioned reports for government, universities
and professional associations, and newspaper articles, including opinion pieces and her own newspaper
column for 10 years. She has an h-index of 21. Professor Devlin is an elected Lifelong Fellow of the Society
for Research in Higher Education.
Academic practice, identity and careers
Professor Bruce Macfarlane, Professor of Higher Education,
University of Southampton
The word ‘traditional’ is possibly the most over-used term in the higher education discourse. In common with
nearly all institutions that have endured for any substantial length of time, such as the Church of England
or the Conservative Party, the University has been adroit at re-inventing itself. The latest re-imagining is that
‘traditional’ universities are research-led institutions. This myth has comparatively recent roots linked to the
growth of an audit culture, expansion and stratification on an international basis, and academic performativity
at an individual level. These trends have collectively re-shaped the nature of academic practice and identity
over the last 50 years.
An insight into how priorities have changed among academics during the recent past is provided by Halsey
and Trow’s seminal study, published in 1971, of a then still small and elite British higher education sector
drawing on data gathered in the mid-1960s (at a time when the SRHE was being formed). They found that
British academics were overwhelmingly oriented towards teaching rather than research. A mere 10 per cent
were even ‘interested’ in research while just 4 per cent regarded research as their primary responsibility
(Halsey & Trow, 1971). The study concludes that ‘elitist teachers’ constituted the dominant ‘academic type’
predominantly interested in teaching rather than research and opposed to the expansion of the system. Nor
was it just British academics that saw their role as primarily about teaching rather than research. Writing
about American academics as late as 1979, Logan Wilson asserted that even though ‘assigned teaching
loads…normally allow ample time for research, the majority consider teaching to be more important than
research’ (Wilson, 1979:234).
Very many articles in early issues of Studies in Higher Education, first published in 1976, focused on
undergraduate teaching picking over very practical issues such as the use of lectures, examinations, and
various forms of educational innovation. The language of this time was all about ‘university teachers’. The
virtual disappearance of this phrase in the modern lexicon tells us a lot about the way in which the subsequent
separation of government funding for research and teaching has led to a radical shifting of academic priorities,
part of an international trend evidenced by successive Changing Academic Profession surveys.
Analysis of the academic profession in the 1970s, in the aftermath of the campus radicalism of the previous
decade, is sometimes characterized in terms of a division between the forces of conservatism and liberalism
(Ladd and Lipset, 1975) or in attitudes towards the expansion of the higher education system (Halsey and
Trow, 1971). Sadly today the very idea that the socio-political views of academics should be sought, let alone
listened to, might seem at best, quaint or at worst, irrelevant. This is partly about the way in which the public
role and status of the academic has shrunk.
9
The divisions today within the academic profession are more usually expressed in terms of contractual or
stratified status: research or teaching contracts, tenured or untenured, full or part-time, and, the career critical
division between those who have been submitted or omitted for national research audit exercises (eg PBRF in
New Zealand, the RAE in Hong Kong or the REF in the UK). The expansion of higher education has not only
led to increased inequality between students in a highly stratified sector. It has also had much the same effect
for academics. The realities of casualization and the pressures of performativity have shaped a more inwardlooking ‘academic profession’.
This inward turn marks not just the declining role of academics as public intellectuals but also the atomisation
of academic practice and identity. This fragmentation or ‘unbundling’ of academic labour has resulted in
the parceling of work into discrete and specialized niches. Only around a half of academics in the UK or
Australia are now on ‘all round’ contracts involving teaching, research and service. This means that the other
half are a disparate collection of para-professionals who might research OR teach OR, perhaps, manage.
The line between an ‘academic’ and an ‘administrator’ is also fuzzying as part of this fragmentary process
(Whitchurch, 2008).
Some of the early articles published in Studies in Higher Education essentially constituted personal reflections
on what it means to be a university academic. They are part of a lost world of scholarly dialogue about
academic identity. In ‘Reflections on Working in a University’, Adam Curle (the first professor of peace studies
at the University of Bradford) makes no mention of phrases or agendas which might predominate if such a
piece were to be penned today (eg ‘workload’, ‘impact case study’, ‘research grant’, etc). Instead, the article
provides a critical reflection on his own development from ‘middle class English academic, subtly conscious
of status, class, and colour, believing – albeit criticizing – the values of western civilization…’ (Curle, 1977:10)
to a later realization that his ‘attitude toward students had the same ominiscient superiority that had tainted
my attitude towards people in the countries where I had worked on development problems.’ (p 11). Such a
candid self-analysis is all too rare today as modern para-professionals, including full professors, scurry around
meeting the demands of a performative culture.
Today Curle’s idiosyncratic meanderings would probably face instant rejection from Studies in Higher
Education given its lack of a ‘methodology’ section, empirical evidence or other sufficiently respectable social
scientific clothing. Such conventions now predominate and have positively contributed to achieving the hope
expressed by Tony Becher, in his opening editorial in the first issue of Studies in 1976, for higher education
to ‘constitute as valid a field of intellectual enquiry as can any specialized discipline’ (Becher, 1976:2). Yet, at
the same time, much of the scholarly dialogue from the 1970s and early 80s reminds us what has been lost.
These authors addressed a key question too rarely considered today: what does it mean to be an academic?
References
Becher, T. (1976) Editorial, Studies in Higher Education, 1:1, 1-2.
Curle, A. (1977) Reflections on Working in a University, Studies in Higher Education, 2:1, 9-13.
Halsey, A.H. and Trow, M. (1971) The British Academics, Faber & Faber, London.
Ladd, E.C. and Lipset, S.M. (1975) The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics, McGraw-Hill,
New York & London.
Whitchurch, C. (2008) Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: the Emergence of Third Space
Professionals in UK Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, 62:4, 377-396.
Wilson, L. (1979) American Academics, Oxford University Press, New York.
Biography
Bruce Macfarlane is professor of higher education at the University of Southampton. He has previously held
chairs at universities in the UK and Hong Kong and visiting professorial positions in Japan and Australia.
His publications, including 4 single authored books published by Routledge, have developed conceptual
frameworks for interpreting academic practice, ethics and leadership. Key concepts his work has helped
to define include academic integrity, academic citizenship, intellectual leadership, and student performativity.
His current research focuses on the ethics of multiple authorship, academic integrity in China and student
academic freedom. He is a Fellow and former Vice Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education.
10
Looking back to look forward at the Student Experience
Professor Mary Stuart, Vice Chancellor, University of Lincoln
Attempting a review of work on the student experience over the last 50 years is daunting. The concept of the
‘student experience’ is so defuse and covers so many areas that any review would be partial. However I will
attempt to discuss what themes I believe to be important as they have emerged in research on the student
experience in HE along with what questions have been asked by researchers of these themes and how these
themes and questions relate to the rapidly, it seems looking back, changing higher education landscape.
I wish to place this discussion in the context of what I believe are the two overarching policy narratives which
have shaped higher education since 1965 which have therefore driven the research and impact agendas for
the student experience. The relationship between policy and research is complex, sometimes with research
questions developing because of new policies and sometimes with research influencing new policy. However
all research on the student experience can be seen as deriving from the processes of the Massification
and Marketisation of higher education, the two meta-narratives for HE in the last 50 years. I will begin with
Massification.
The concept of Massification in HE comes from Trow (1970) in his seminal discussion of the stages of the
development of higher education; elite, mass and universal. Clearly the Robbins Report (Committee on
Higher Education, 1963) which recommended the opportunity for all who had the ability to benefit from HE
to be able to take a degree was the justification for expansion. Robins needs to be seen in the context of a
much wider global growth in HE including in the USA and other parts of the Western world post the second
world war. It was recognised that if countries were to compete successfully higher level education for more
people was necessary. Equally, although Robbins agreed with the policy, recommending grants for students
rather than paying fees as students had done up until the 1960s, was a recommendation from the Anderson
Review in 1961.
However the increase in the number of Universities, the introduction of grants for students and the creation
of the polytechnics in the later part of the 1960s and early 1970s provided many more opportunities for
students to get into higher education. Core debates on the student experience and students which are still
discussed in research and the media developed at this time. What is currently called widening participation,
widening access or social equity in HE was discussed in relation to the expansion with Kingsley Amis
commenting that ‘more was worse’ (Tight, 2012), an idea still current in debates today. The ‘new’ students
were seen as different and even Robbins said of the new students that ‘too many entrants cannot themselves
express themselves clearly in English and have an inadequate understanding of basic mathematical
principles’ (Committee on Higher Education, 1963: para 570). Research on student support and the needs
of students began to emerge partly as a result (Myers, 2013) but there was little discussion as such, until the
1980s, on issues of student diversity, such as gender, ethnicity, class and disability.
The most rapid expansion of higher education in the UK took place in the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. This
expansion brought in more and diverse students; women who had missed out on higher education earlier
in their lives because of prejudice about women’s role in society; minority ethnic students from aspirational
parents and the reclassifying of professional qualifications into higher education. New qualifications to enable
mature students gain access to HE were developed in particular the Access movement which provided
extensive research opportunities (Ryle and Stuart, 1994) Research into the student experience during this
phase was dominated by investigations into women’s education (Thompson, 2000) and adult and part-time
learners (Taylor and Ward, 1986; West, 1996) , picking up on the changing nature of the student body. Parttime students of course always paid (subsidised) fees themselves.
During the mid 1990s Sir Ron Dearing, later Lord Dearing, was asked to undertake a review of higher
education. The report in 1996 recommended the re-introduction of fees for full-time undergraduate home
students. Many of the recommendation from Dearing were taken up by the new Labour government in 1997.
This created considerable interest in researching the impact of fees on student behaviour and student debt
itself became an area of considerable interest for researchers (Callender and Jackson, 2004), particularly
when fees were increased and income contingent loans were introduced in 2003. The policy was influenced
by research and practice in Australia (Chapman, 2006) and the work of Barr and Crawford (2005) in the
UK. Equally significant in terms of creating further research questions from the Dearing review affecting
the student experience was the development of the Institute for learning and teaching , latterly the Higher
Education Academy, and the new Labour government’s commitment to reaching the 50% of under 30
11
year olds having some experience of HE. This shifted the research questions away from mature students
to younger students and the creation of school, college and university partnerships to raise aspirations and
attainment to enter HE created a new interest in HE research in the experience of students before they came
into Higher Education (Kintrea, St Cair and Houston, 2011).
Questions of social equity in higher education are global and many of the issues raised in research in the
UK were also highlighted in research in other countries (Osborne, 2003). Concern about retention of particular
groups of students led researchers to explore work from Tinto (1993) in the USA on ‘persistence’ and
concepts of learning from Australian researchers such as Prosser and Tigwell (1999) and Ramsden (2003).
Debates between researchers became keen. Quinn and Thomas (2006) argued that research and institutions
were creating a deficit model of students from ‘widening participation backgrounds’ rather than exploring
the institutional ‘Habitas’ which ‘othered’ difference (Archer, Hutchins and Ross, 2003). Concepts such as
‘belonging’( Wilcox et al, 2005; Stuart, et al,2011a) began to circulate and researchers have increasingly
discovered the importance of the role of friendship and personal relationships (Ecclestone, 2007, Stuart,
2006). Alongside this work further research on the student experience beyond the classroom has suggested
that different students engage beyond formal study differently with their institutions (Little, 2006; Stuart et
al, 2011b) As a result many institutions developed their practice around the early stages of a student’s time
in HE, increasingly providing support for induction and the first year experience began to affect practice in
Universities (Yorke and Thomas, 2003).
Higher Education has always had a market but this market historically focused on tariff, with students
‘buying’ institutions with their final school grades. However marketisation in HE began to develop when UK
Universities were allowed to charge fees for International students in the 1980s. This started a significant
growth in the recruitment and retention of students from emerging countries whose HE systems were
during the 1990s and 2000s not yet sufficiently developed to cope with the demands of their growing
middle classes. Research into cross cultural understanding, learning systems and internationalisation asked
necessary questions to support the increase in international recruitment in UK institutions. (Turner and
Robson, 2007).
Marketisation in English institutions expanded significantly through policy changes between 2010 and 2015.
While new Universities have continued to be established throughout the last 50 years, the significant change
has been the increase in private and for-profit providers. At the same time the government had increased fee
levels paid by income contingent loans to 9,000 pounds and lifted the cap on numbers of undergraduates
who could be recruited by any one institution. Research on the student experience moved into areas of
marketisation and neo-liberal agendas in HE and new researcher on ‘student choice’ developed (Reay et
al 2005; Stuart, et al, 2012b), exploring and critiquing rational choice theory and suggesting that ‘choice’ is
dependent on experience and access. Further work on the critique of neo-liberalism and questions of social
justice is new growing as the sector changes further (Burke, 2012) and critiques of marketisation approaches
to teaching and learning from Ashwin et al (2015).
As value for money is an increasing theme of policy makers in HE concern has been expressed about
higher education as a motor for social mobility and research into social mobility, class and HE has expanded
(Stuart, 2012a; Blanden et al, 2005). Recently research suggests that there is a hollowing out of lower
middle class jobs in Western societies due to technological change and globalisation (Sissons, 2011). This
will affect opportunities for further social mobility. At the same time other researchers have explored ethnicity
and attainment in HE (Broeke and Nicholls, 2007; Richardson, 2008 and Stuart et al, 2011a). Researchers
such as Wakeling (2010) have also argued that postgraduate study has a real class bias towards the middle
classes. This work has affected recent policy announcements to create a loan system for PGT and PGR
students. Most recently there is real interest in how HE can demonstrate its value for graduate employment
(Brennan, (2004). The OECD has conducted research into graduate attributes through its AHELO project and
there is clearly scope for further research in this area of ‘learning gain’, which the higher education funding
council currently calling for pilot studies on learning gain.
Research into the student experience has expanded considerably alongside the expansion of higher
education itself. Insights into different student experiences of access to HE, completion of study and success
for graduates has highlighted the need for more understanding and appreciation of different experience
within the HE environment and has changed practice in institutions (Yorke and Thomas, 2003). However
further work in the area of HE and social justice is still needed to ensure institutions and policy makers are
addressing issues of equity. As new forms of higher education emerge, how the student experience changes
and what opportunities or barriers these new forms provide will provide further research questions in the
future.
12
References
Archer L, Hutching M and Ross A (2003) Higher Education and Social Class London: Routlege Falmer
Ashwin P, Abbas A and McLean M (2015) Representations of a high quality system of undergraduate
education in English higher education policy documents Studies in Higher Education 40 (4) p. 610-623
Brennan J (2004) Graduate Employment: issues for debate and enquiry International Higher Education (34)
p 12-20
Burke, PJ (2012) Accessing Higher Education: Widening Participation, Migration and Gendered Subjectivities
Encyclopaideia Special Issue International Migration and Social Justice Education 2 (34) XVI (accessed 2013)
http://www.academia.edu/3468941/Special_Issue_International_Migration_and_Social_Justice_Education_
VOL_2
Barr N and Crawford I (eds) (2005) Financing Higher Education Answers from the UK Abingdon: Routledge
Blanden J Gregg P and Machin S (2005) Social Mobility in Britain: low and falling (accessed 2010)
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/CP172.pdf
Broeke S and Nicholls T (2007) Ethnicity and Degree Attainment Research Report: RW92 London DfES
Callender C and Jackson J (2004) Fear of Debt and Higher Education Participation Families and Social
Capital ESRC Research Group: London South Bank (accessed 2008) http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/ahs/
downloads/families/familieswp9.pdf
Chapman, B (2006) Income Related Students Loans: Concepts, International Reforms and Administrative
Challenges, in Teixeira, P.N., Johnstone, D.B., Rosa, M.J. & Vossensteyn, H. (ed.), Cost-sharing and
Accessibility in Higher Education: A fairer deal?, Springer, The Netherlands, p 51-77
Committee on Higher Education,( 1963) (The Robbins Review) Report London HMSO
Ecclestone, K (2007) Resisting images of the ‘diminished self’: the implications of emotional well-being and
emotional engagement in education policy Journal of Education Policy 22 (4) p 455-470
Kintrea K, St Clair R and Houston M (2011) The Influence of parents, places and poverty on educational
attitudes and aspiration Joseph Rowntree Foundation ( accessed 2011) http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/
young-people-education-attitudes-full.pdf
Little B (2006) The Student Experience and the impact of social capital in McNay I (ed) (2006) Beyond Mass
Higher Education Maidenhead: SRHE-OUP
Myers, J (2013) Why Support Students: Using the past to understand the present, Higher Education
Research and Development 32 (4) p 590-602
Osborne M (2003) Policy and Practice in Widening Participation a six country comparison of access
International Journal of Lifelong Education 22 (1) January-February p 43-59
OECD AHELO Project Third report (accessed 2015) http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-school/
AHELOFSReportVolume3.pdf
Prosser, M and Tigwell,K. (1999) Understanding Learning and Teaching: the experience in higher education.
Birmingham, SRHE-OUP
Ramsden P (2003) Learning to Teach in Higher Education London: Routledge
Reay D, David M and Ball S (2005) Degrees of Choice Social Class, race and gender in Higher Education
Stoke: Trentham Books
Richardson T (2008) The attainment of ethnic minority students in UK higher Education Studies in Higher
Education 33 (1) p 33-48
Ryle M and Stuart M (1994) ) A Curriculum for Women? A Case study from Brighton Journal of Access
Studies 9 p 9 – 15
Sissons P (2011) The Hourglass and the Escalator Labour Market Change and Mobility The Work Foundation
(accessed 2012) http://www.theworkfoundation.com/DownloadPublication/Report/292_hourglass_
escalator120711%20(2)%20(3).pdf
Stuart M (2006) ‘My Friends made all the difference’. Getting into and succeeding at University for first-time
entrants in Journal of Access Policy and Practice (Summer, 2006) p 27-40
Stuart M, Lido C and Morgan J (2011a) Personal Stories - How students’ social and cultural life histories
interact with the field of higher education with Lido C and Morgan J International Journal of Lifelong
Education 30 (4) p 489-508
Stuart M, Lido C, Morgan J Solomon L and May S (2011b) The Impact of Engagement with Extracurricular
Activities on the student Experience and Graduate Outcomes for Widening Participation Populations Active
Learning in Higher Education 12 (3) p 203-215
Stuart M, Lido C and Morgan J (2012a) Choosing a Student Lifestyle? Questions of taste, cultural capital and
gaining a graduate job in Hilton-Smith T (ed) (2012) Widening Participation in Higher Education: Casting the
net wide? London:Palgrave
Stuart M (2012b) Social Mobility and Higher Education The life Experiences of first Generation Entrants in
Higher Education Stoke: Trentham Books
Taylor R and Ward K (eds) ( 1986) Adult Education and the Working Class Education for the Missing Millions
London Routledge
13
Thomas L and Quinn J (2006) First Generation Entry into Higher Education: an international study
Maidenhead: SRHE-OUP
Thompson, J (2000) Stretching the Academy: The Politics and Practice of Widening Participation in
Higher Education, NIACE
Tight, M (2009) The Development of Higher Education since 1945 Maidenhead:SRHE-OUP
Tinto V (1993) Leaving College: rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition 2nd edition Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
Trow M (1970) Reflections on the Transition from Mass to Universal Higher Education Daedalus 99 (1)
p 1-42 Turner, Y. and Robson, S., 2007. Competitive and cooperative impulses to internationalization:
reflecting on the interplay between management intentions and the experience of academics in a British
university Education, Knowledge and Economy 1 (1) p 65-82
Wakeling P (2010) Inequalities in Postgraduate Education a comparative review in Goastellec G (ed) (2010)
Understanding Inequalities in, through and by Higher Education Rotterdam: SENSE p 61-74
West, 1996 Beyond Fragments Adults, Motivation and Higher Education Abingdon:Taylor and Francis
Wilcox P, Winn S and Fyvie-Gauld M (2005) ‘It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people’:
the role of social support in the first year experience in higher education Studies in Higher Education 20 (6)
p 707-722
Yorke M and Thomas L, (2003) Improving Retention of Students from Lower Socio-economic Groups Journal
of Higher Education Policy and Management 25 (1) p 63-74
Biography
Mary Stuart is Professor of Higher Education Studies at the University of Lincoln where she is also Vice
Chancellor. She has conducted research and published widely on the Student Experience Widening
Participation and Lifelong Learning since the early 1990’s.
She is a Sociologist and a Life Historian. Since her appointment as Vice Chancellor at the University of
Lincoln in 2009 she has established and grown the first new Engineering School to be created in the UK
for more than 20 years (in collaboration with Siemens plc) and successfully led the development of Science
provision at Lincoln and reshaped provision in the Arts and Humanities.
Mary is currently a HEFCE Board Member, the Chair of HEFCE’s Teaching Excellence and Student
Opportunity Strategic Advisory Committee and a member of the Higher Education Public Information
Steering Group, as well as being Chair of Action on Access Advisory Committee, Deputy Chair of the
University Alliance, and a Board member of the Equality Challenge Unit.
Transnational perspectives on Higher Education and Global Well-being
Professor Rajani Naidoo, Professor of Higher Education Management,
University of Bath
The contribution of HE to global wellbeing was not always accepted. A view long held by the World Bank
and other powerful actors was that investment in HE would bring limited social and economic benefits to
developing countries. This view, which led to large scale disinvestment, was successfully challenged and
in 2000 the World Bank itself positioned HE as a crucial engine for economic and social development1.
In the context of the knowledge economy, the assumption is that HE will enable low income countries to
‘leap-frog’ over intermediate developmental stages and improve their positions globally2. At the same time,
the formidable obstacles to the development of high quality systems of HE in many developing countries
are recognised3. In this context, the provision of HE by foreign and corporate providers may be seen as an
attractive solution in countries where governments are unable to readily acquire resources to commit to HE.
But to what extent can trans-national HE contribute to global wellbeing? Important strands of contemporary
research respond to this question by situating HE in the context of the dominance of neo-liberalism and
geo-political power struggles. At the same time, such research has shown that HE has always had a relative
autonomy and that universities can contribute to social change in the most draconian societies4.
Analysts have referred to the geo-politics of the 21st century as an era of ‘ new imperialism.’ While classical
rivalries were legitimated by ethnicity in the colonial period or the war on communism in the cold war period,
it is religion that is now deployed to explain conflict5. Rising powers such as China, a one-party state with a
giant economy or Brazil, with its opposition to armed US interventions and its forging of a regional identity
with Cuba and Venezuela have potential to disrupt global power relations6. The Bolivarian Alliance of the
14
Peoples of Our Americas spearheaded by Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba has an anti imperialist
and anti-neoliberal stance. In an era of neo-liberal deregulation, international organisations and transnational
corporations wield increasing power on all aspects of public life including HE.
HE stands at the centre of these developments. The intensification of the struggle for positional advantage
in the global economy and the competition for highly skilled knowledge workers have contributed to a fierce
competition within and between national systems of HE. I have referred to this as the competition fetish.
In addition, researchers such as Buchanan have been highly influential in the application of neo-liberal market
mechanisms and public choice theory to higher education. I and others have shown that creation of a global
market in HE of course a rigged market which is twisted with strong protectionism to create an un-equal
playing field7.
Researchers have also analysed other types of competition in HE .These come with their own set of rules
based on institutions already judged to be ‘the best’ and include ‘excellence’ or ‘world class’ policies and are
re-enforced by global rankings which exert an influence on all institutions, even those in developing countries
which have little capacity to feature in such rankings.8
While research advocating pro-market neo-liberal policies has influenced policy and practice, research
that has been critical of such trends has been largely marginalised. Such research has indicated that the
transformation of higher education into a commodity may result in developing countries particularly those with
weak regulation becoming mass markets for low quality education with attendant effects on development
and global wellbeing. Research that has raised concerns that transnational education may lead to the erosion
of indigenous values and culture has been more influential. Development organisations and universities in high
income countries increasingly recognize the danger of reproducing unequal imperial type relations and have
taken steps to reflect more critically on power and culture.
Given the above, what are the research priorities going forward ?
Firstly we need to undertake research that exposes some common myths that are presently clouding
debates on HE and global wellbeing. Modernity is not a single, unified homogenising process and the West
is not the only yardstick by which success is measured. Market fundamentalism and the competition fetish
are not inevitable9. In addition it is not so easy to divide the world between the powerful global north and
the powerless global South. My analysis drawing on the scholarship on uneven and combined development
shows us that there are connections between high status universities low income countries which are
detached from their surroundings and linked to the higher education power centres of the north and the black
holes of under-resourced institutions located in the richest countries in the north but dislocated from power10.
At the same time we have to expose the myth that public institutions always work in the interests of the
public good.
In the same way we need to be wary of constructing a reified binary between dominant ‘Western’ and
‘indigenous’ knowledge. A binary logic contrasting American and European culture with ‘non-western’
cultures; or modernity with tradition denies the multiplicity of peoples’ lives and discourages criticism of
intergroup conflict .There is also the danger that equating knowledge in a simplistic manner with ideology
or culture will result in us losing all mechanisms to evaluate knowledge.
Third, even more fundamental is how we define education’s contribution to the development of world
societies. We are currently witnessing world-wide attacks on public systems of HE. The blame for pervasive
poverty, growing unemployment and social unrest is laid at the door of HE rather than seen as an outcome
of policies related to predatory capitalism. HE plays a part here but it would be a grave error to believe
that HE in isolation can contribute to global wellbeing. It is therefore very important to link HE to wider
development and global wellbeing strategies.
The research field is characterised on the one hand by macro global political economy analyses. Intellectual
giants such as Robert Wade shows us how global power relations shrink the development space open to
low income countries. We also have approaches such as the capability and human rights approaches which
place people at the centre of education and development11. This body of work could also be usefully linked
to an analysis of the wider social structure in which people interact. The ‘Wellbeing Regimes’ framework
offers significant potential as it analyses macro structures above the state such as multi-national corporations
and and those below the state such as religious and civil groups12. By linking the work on capabilities and
human rights to the wellbeing regimes framework we can focus on how the mutual connections between
a reconfiguration of the global system and the empowerment of local communities and individuals across
national borders can contribute to the sustainability of human relationships and global wellbeing.
References
Task Force On Higher Education in Developing Countries (convened by UNESCO and the World Bank)
1
15
(2000) Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. URL: http:///www.tfhe.net/report/
overview.htm.
Castells, M. (2001) ‘Information Technology and Global Development’, in Muller, J., Cloete, N. and Badat, S.
(eds) Challenges of Globalisation: South African Debates with Manuel Castells (Cape Town: Maskew Miller/
Longman).
2
Sawyerr, A. 2004 ‘Challenges Facing African Universities: Selected Issues’, Association of African
Universities. URL: www.africanstudies.org/ChallengesFacingAfricanUniversities.pdf.
3
Brennan, J and Naidoo, R. (2006). Managing Contradictory Functions: The role of universities in societies
that have undergone radical social transformation, in Neave, G. (Ed.) Research and Knowledge in Higher
Education Policy.Paris: UNESCO Press, pp. 221-234
4
5
Tikly, L. (2004), ‘Education and new imperialism’, Comparative Education, 40 (2)173–98
Naidoo, R. (2011). The New Imperialism in Higher Education: Implications for Development, in King, R.,
Marginson, S. and Naidoo, R. (Eds.) A Handbook on Globalization and Higher Education. Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar. pp 40-58.
6
Naidoo, R. (2007 ). Higher Education as a Global Commodity: The Perils and Promises for Developing
Countries, in The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 1 February. (Reviewed in the Times Higher
Education Supplement on 9 March 2007)
7
Marginson, S. (2009), ‘University rankings and the knowledge economy’, in Peters,M., Marginson, S.,
and Murphy, P., Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy, New York: Peter Lang, 185-216; Enders,
J. (2014). The Academic Arms Race: International Rankings and Global Competition for World-Class
Universities. In Pettigrew, A.M., Cornuel, E. & Hommel, U. (eds.) The Institutional Development of Business
Schools. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155-175.
8
Naidoo, R. (2011) Higher Education and the Competition Fetish. Keynote to the Consortium of Finnish
Higher Education Researchers’ Annual Conference, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, 22-25 August 2011
9
Naidoo, R. (2014) Trans-national Higher Education: Global Wellbeing or Cultural Imperialism? Keynote
to the United Kingdom Forum for Education and Training. University of London Institute of Education and
University College. 24 September 2014
10
Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. (2007) (Ed). Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in
Education. Palgrave
11
Gough, I. and Wood, G. (2006) A Comparative Welfare Regime Approach to Global Social Policy,
World Development, 34,10, 1696-1712
12
Biography
Rajani Naidoo is Professor and Director of the International Centre for Higher Education Management
at the University of Bath with extensive experience of research based policy engagement and executive
development in a global context. She has keynoted major conferences worldwide and sits on the executive
editorial board of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, the International Journal of Sociology
of Education and on the European Foundation for Management and Development research and
development committee. Multi-national research projects have focussed on the academic profession and
transnational education. Her research interests include public sector markets and new public management;
global governance and transnational education and the transformation of higher education into a global
commodity. Research on Higher Education Policy
Professor Jeroen Huisman, Professor of Higher Education at Centre for Higher
Education Governance Ghent (CHEGG) Ghent University, Belgium
Research on higher education in general, apparently, is alive and kicking. Tight (2012) calls higher education
“big business” and other authors refer to the massification of higher education (read: more students, more
staff, potentially more researchers interested in higher education) but also to the increasing important of
higher education and research in contemporary society to signify increasing interest in higher education
research.
16
The growth is also evidenced by an increase in journals focusing on higher education (Altbach, 2009) and
in the growth of research centres on higher education (Rumbley et al., 2015). Although that growth may
be uneven: with considerable growth in new economies in e.g. Asia and Latin America and stabilisation in
(Western) Europe and the US, Rumbley et al (2015, 7) argue that “higher education is fast moving from the
margins to the centre of much discussion and debate among policymakers around the world”.
Elsewhere (Huisman, 2015), I argued that behind this growth there are patterns of diversity, some of these
to celebrate and others to worry about. This diversity is e.g. visible in the organisation of our field (e.g.
disciplinary versus theme-based) , in who is involved (researchers from the disciplines, specialised higher
education researchers, applied researchers/practitioners) and in who funds/supports research on higher
education. I will take the diversity as point of departure to reflect on research on higher education policy.
The diversity of the theme itself: A celebration
Even if we think that market mechanisms do not belong in higher education, one of the positive results
of marketization is that higher education policy studies have been broadened from doing “another policy
evaluation project” to a rich set of studies that also focus on how, why and to what extent governments
increasingly rely on market mechanisms, but also focus on how stakeholders beyond governments are
playing an increasingly important role in higher education (as they do in other [semi-]public and even in
private sectors). In other words, higher education policy is broadened to depict “… a change in the meaning
of government, referring to a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new
method by which society is governed” (Rhodes, 1996, p. 652-653). I welcome this development for it allows
us – higher education researchers – to broaden our scope and to see policy (change) as part of the larger
politico-administrative fabric.
The disciplines and the field specialists: some concerns
The labelling “another policy evaluation project” above, does not do justice to the richness of approaches to
policy analysis in general. The disciplinary journals and book series (in political sciences, public administration
and public policy, and economics) continue to explore in greater depth aspects of the policy process.
Not everything that happens in the disciplines should be welcomed by default, but one should admire the
continuing creativity depth of further exploration of key facets of the policy process. To give a couple of
examples: I have put Jordan and Turnpenny´s (2015) “ The tools of policy formulation: Actors, capacities,
venues and effects” and Thissen and Walker´s (2013) “Public policy analysis” on my list of books to read.
Interestingly: although I cannot present the full evidence of this, my impression is that higher education policy
researchers make very limited use of the rich toolbox offered by the disciplines (see also Huisman, 2009). This
relates both to the use of general policy theories (as developed by e.g. Sabatier, Kingdom, and Baumgartner
and Jones) and the more specialised literature on elements of the policy process (e.g. policy design, policy
implementation, policy evaluation). I have the impression that much more synergy can be realised if we
would rely much more on the advances made in the disciplines, instead of developing another short-range
idiosyncratic explanation of higher education policy.
Who does the research: overall a celebration … but some concerns
Another impression, again one that would need further substantiation, is that much research is carried out by
those who have not been “educated” in the core policy disciplines or as higher education (policy) researchers.
I emphasise the value that this brings to our field. Insights from scholars from the humanities (particularly
history) and social sciences (anthropology, sociology) have greatly contributed to refined insights in higher
education policy and its impact. One of the downsides of the diversity is, however, that it is difficult – even
for seasoned scholars – to keep abreast of everything that appears in sometimes very specialised journals.
E.g. I would never have come across the illuminating work of anthropologist Strathern (1997), if I had not
been nudged by a colleague. And if an interesting source has been discovered, it is not always easy to come
to terms with it, for it often requires a deep(er) understanding of the discourses in that particular discipline.
The value this diversity of backgrounds brings is sometimes distorted by contributions from those that think
they can speak authoritatively about higher education, for the simple fact that they have “experiences” in that
field. Many higher education managers and institutional leaders suffer from this misplaced authority. Most of
these contributions are not very productive, because they do not go beyond anecdotes and storytelling and
are seldom embedded in the broader knowledge we have on the specific topic.
The love-hate relationship between research and policy/practice
But maybe this is a benign form of “scholarship”, for at the same time I think that some higher education
policy research does not take sufficient distance from its object of study. Higher education (policy) researchers
are studying something they are also subject to. This can bring along tensions and it may be difficult to stay
17
impartial. However, this seems to me key if one of our aims as policy researchers would be to improve policy
and practice. We need to continue to speak truth to power (with reference to Aaron Wildavsky´s 1979 book
title), while at the same time adhering to Merton´s values of disinterestedness and organised scepticism.
References
Altbach, P. G. (2009). Higher education: An emergent field of research and policy. In R. M. Bassett & A.
Maldonado-Maldonado (Eds.), International organizations and higher education policy: Thinking globally,
acting locally? (pp. 1-31). New York and London: Routledge.
Huisman, J. (2009). Coming to terms with governance in higher education. In J. Huisman (Ed.), Internatonal
perspectives on the governance of higher education. Alternative frameworks for coordination (pp. 1-9). New
York/Abingdon: Routledge
Huisman, J. (2015). Higher education experts and commissioned research: Between stability, fragility and
ambiguity? in M. Souto-Otero (Ed.), Evaluating European education policy-making. Privatization, networks
and the European Commission (pp. 144-163). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996). The new governance: Governing without government. Political Studies 44(4), 652667.
Rumbley, L.E., Altbach, Ph.G., Stanfield, D.A., Shimmi, Y, Gayardon, A. de, and R.Y. Chan (2015). Higher
education: A worldwide inventory. Bonn: Lemmens.
Strathern, M. (1997). ´Improving ratings’: audit in the British university system. European Review, 5, 305-321.
Tight, M. (2012). Researching higher education (second ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press McGraw
Hill Education.
Biography
Jeroen Huisman is professor of Higher Education at the Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent
(CHEGG, www.chegg.ugent.be), department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium. He was researcher
at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, the Netherlands (19912005) and professor of Higher Education Management, University of Bath, UK (2005-2013). He is editor
of the journal Higher Education Policy, co-editor of the Routledge/SRHE Higher Education book series,
co-editor of the Emerald book series on Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (with Malcolm
Tight) and member of the editorial board of several higher education journals. His research interests are:
higher education policy, higher education governance, organizational change in higher education and
internationalization and Europeanisation. His recent works include papers on organisational image and
identity in Studies in Higher Education and Higher Education Research and Development and an edited
book on salient issues in contemporary higher education research (with Jenni Case).
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P E R S P E C T I V E S F R O M T H E N E W G E N E R AT I O N O F L E A D I N G
RESEARCHERS
Panel Chair: Dr Manja Klemenčič
Manja Klemenčič is Fellow and Lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, Harvard University. She researches, teaches, advises and consults in the area of international and
comparative higher education, with particular interest on the implications of contemporary higher education
reforms on students. She has also researched questions of higher education internationalisation, academic
profession, institutional research, university governance and student unionism.
Currently, Manja is working on a book manuscript entitled “Student power in neoliberal age” which
investigates student agency towards academic and professional self-formation. She is also a principal
investigator and leads the Slovenian research group in the international network on changes in academic
profession (CAP II). Manja’s methodological work is devoted to “digital ethnography” which adapts
ethnographic and phenomenological methods of inquiry for digital use; thus creating conditions for largescale participatory qualitative data collection on student experience.
Manja is Editor-in-Chief of European Journal of Higher Education (Routledge/Taylor&Francis), associate editor
of the section “Elite and Mass Higher Education in the 21st Century” of the International Encyclopedia of
Higher Education Systems and Institutions (Springer), co-editor of the book series Understanding student
experience in higher education (Bloomsbury) and serves on the Governing Board of the Consortium of Higher
Education Researchers (CHER). Manja received M. Phil and PhD in International Studies from University
of Cambridge, Manja is on sabbatical leave as a visiting fellow at POLIS, University of Cambridge and
collaborating with CGHE, Institute of Education, UCL.
Going global- opportunities and challenges for HE researchers
Professor Paul Ashwin, Lancaster University
Globally participation in Higher Education is rising rapidly. UNESCO figures for enrolment in tertiary education
show that globally, participation rose from 19% in 2000 to 32% in 2012. It is also increasingly an international
phenomenon; for example, the number of students studying abroad more than doubled from 2.1m in 2000 to
4.5m in 2012.
The increasing numbers of students internationally has contributed to greater scrutiny of higher education,
as it has become a key focus of national and international policy makers. This scrutiny has led to unparalleled
information about HE. This greater information presents higher education researchers with both challenges
and possibilities because it both tells us more about higher education whilst also simplifying its complexities.
If we take the quality of higher as an example, the recent Yerevan Communiqué from EU Higher Education
Ministers declared that “Enhancing the quality and relevance of teaching and learning is the main mission of
the EHEA”. This both elevates the status of teaching and learning whilst also raising pressing questions about
how we judge the quality of teaching in higher education.
Positions in national and international higher education league tables have become a dominant way of
representing this quality. Their attraction is understandable: they travel across a number of contexts and
audiences as well as having resonance for prospective students and their families, employers, policy makers,
academics and universities, and international bodies. However, their shortcomings are equally obvious:
they tend to involve unrelated and incomparable measures that are brought together into a single score by
algorithms and weightings that lack any statistical credibility. Crucially, the stability at the top of the league
tables reinforces privilege: higher status institutions tend to take in a much greater proportion of privileged
students. League tables strongly and wrongly suggest that students who have been to these institutions
have received a higher quality education. So even as league tables gives us more information about higher
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education, they are distorting our understanding of its quality. It also distorts our understanding of teaching:
making it about history and prestige rather than about the ways in which students are given access to
powerful knowledge.
Given the problems with League Tables, another attractive way of examining quality is to compare students’
learning outcomes from higher education. The idea here is that comparisons of the quality of higher education
are based on what students can actually do when they graduate. This raises questions about the extent to
which student learning outcomes can be standardised across national and disciplinary boundaries and the
extent to which they should reflect the particular and authentic achievements of individual students. There
are strong pressures for standardisation in order to allow the measurement of the performance of higher
education institutions, and to ensure equitable higher education for all students regardless of which institution
they study in. The legitimacy of these demands needs to be recognised given the investments that societies
and students make in higher education.
On the other side of this tension, is the view that what is higher about higher education is the personal
relationship that students develop with disciplinary and professional knowledge. It is this which provides the
transformative aspects of higher education that is so highly valued by students, governments and societies.
Thus if standardisation leads to a focus on identifying outcomes that are measurable across contexts rather
than outcomes that reflect the way in which students’ identities are transformed by their engagement with
disciplinary and professional knowledge, then the danger is that we lose more than we gain.
The danger of the increase global information about higher education is that the individual, durable and
stable elements of higher education that can be easily measured are given a greater value than those that are
collective, complex, changing and country-specific. As higher education researchers, we need to engage with
such tensions critically, constructively, collectively and courageously. Critically because we need to challenge
the tendency to value only what is measurable and carefully identify the ways in which different simplifications,
including our own, offer a partial picture of the world’s complexity. Constructively because we need to respect
and take seriously the concerns of those both inside and outside of higher education research with whom we
may strongly disagree. In doing so, we need to offer alternatives ways of addressing these concerns rather
than simply dismissing them through critique. Collectively because we need to recognise and emphasise
that the value of higher education research comes from the communal bodies of knowledge that it produces
rather than individual researchers or projects. Courageously because our contribution to higher education
research is always in the process of becoming. This means that our successes and failures are temporary
and, as a community, we need to continually work to show the value of what higher education research can
offer. This requires us not to underestimate the challenges involved in offering all students a transformative
higher education experience but also not to forget the possibilities offered by the power of higher education
to transform students’ understanding of the world and their position within it.
Biography
Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education and Head of Department at the Department of Educational
Research, Lancaster University, UK. Paul’s research focuses on teaching-learning and knowledge-curriculum
practices in higher education and their relations to higher education policies.
Paul’s book Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education (2009, Continuum) critically
examined different approaches to conceptualizing teaching–learning interactions in higher education. He is
the lead author of Reflective Teaching in Higher Education (2015, Bloomsbury), which is designed for all of
those working in higher education who are interested in further developing research-informed approaches to
university teaching. Paul recently completed the Economic and Social Research Council funded ‘Pedagogic
Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees Project, with Monica McLean (University of Nottingham) and
Andrea Abbas (University of Lincoln). This project focused on comparing the quality of teaching, learning and
curricula in undergraduate sociology and allied subjects in four universities that have different reputations for
the quality of the undergraduate experience that they offer. The study aimed to question the assumptions
underlying these reputations through an in-depth exploration of the relations between what students bring to
university, their experiences of university education and what they gain it.
Paul is a co-investigator in the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), which will: conduct,
disseminate and publish basic and applied research in three integrated programmes of work, relating to
global, national (UK) and local perspectives on higher education; develop theory about higher education and
methods of inquiry and research; respond to new issues arising within the frame of the three programmes,
and at the interfaces between them; facilitate broad academic and policy discussion about higher education
in the UK and across the world; and build long-term capacity in UK social science research on higher
education. CGHE is a partnership of three UK universities and eight international universities led by the UCL
Institute of Education in London. CGHE’s offshore partners are located in Ireland, Netherlands, South Africa,
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the United States, Australia, China, Hong Kong SAR and Japan. Its UK partners are Lancaster University and
the University of Sheffield. CGHE commences in October 2015 and is supported by £6.1 million in funding
over five years.
Access and Widening Participation in Higher Education
Professor Penny Jane Burke, University of Roehampton, London & University
of Newcastle, Australia
Questions of access and widening participation continue to pose significant challenges for policy-makers
and practitioners in higher education with enduring and persistent inequalities at play. Research has a central
role to play in shaping the future directions of equity policy and practice, creating innovative methodologies
and providing detailed and nuanced analysis to examine and unearth the root causes of ongoing inequalities.
Research has traced the ways that inequalities are exacerbated by the multiple uncertainties and complexities
characterising contemporary higher education, with profound changes being shaped by externally imposed
and interconnecting political forces including globalisation, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, corporatisation,
neo-patriarchy and neocolonialism. In this contemporary context of higher education, there is increasing
pressure for universities to position themselves as ‘world-class’, to aggressively compete in a highly stratified
field driven by discourses of ‘excellence’ and to address the expectations of an all embracing league table
culture striking at the very heart of university research and teaching. The ways that ‘excellence’ is placed
in tension with ‘equity’ is unspoken and both ‘excellence’ and ‘equity’ are reduced to measurable outputs.
Against this hyper-competitive and hierarchical landscape, concerns about widening participation, equity and
social justice have been narrowed to aspirations of employability, efficiency and competency, with a strong
emphasis on business and economic imperatives and logics.
Widening participation policy and practice has been preoccupied with concerns about ‘fair access’ and
‘raising aspirations’ of those classified as ‘disadvantaged’, ‘vulnerable’ and/or ‘excluded’ but simultaneously
constructed as ‘bright’, with ‘potential’, ‘talent’ and ‘ability’. Such perspectives of widening participation have
been extensively critiqued by higher education researchers for failing to address the structures, systems,
practices and cultures of educational institutions that are deeply complicit in the social reproduction of
inequality and exclusion. The politics of recognition, which profoundly forms processes of selection and
exclusion and sensibilities of (not) belonging, is concealed from view. The increasing levels of instrumentalism
and utilitarianism shaping discourses of widening participation have been challenged for failing to engage
significant and complex questions relating to the right to higher education, not only about who has access,
but also the purposes of and what it means to participate in higher education in the twenty-first century.
Although most universities now aspire to showcase their ‘diversity’, this is often couched in the language
of the market and the growing levels of the commercialisation of higher education. Such frameworks fail to
problematise the ways that diversity is entangled with historical inequalities and the politics of difference and
recognition.
Universities are increasingly encouraged to develop ‘evidence-based’ policy and practice but this locks
policy-makers and practitioners into constrained and reductive ways of thinking about equity issues.
‘Evidence’ emphasises generalisability and objectivity, with a strong focus on the tangible, observable
and measurable and is often embedded in those technologies of classification that perpetuate rather than
challenge polarising discourses and dividing practices. Evidence is clearly important in uncovering patterns of
inequality but only provides restrictive knowledge and insight. The formation of policy and practice for access
and widening participation requires a broader ‘research-informed’ framework, informed by interdisciplinary
perspectives and methodologies, that aim to capture the contextual and subjective layers of inequality, which
are often unwittingly reproduced through taken-for-granted practices or assumptions. Lived and embodied
experiences of inequality are difficult to ‘evidence’ and measure because these work at the everyday level of
lived experience and emotion. Generating knowledge about the ways that insidious inequalities work requires
a range of fine-tuned research methodologies that are designed to explore the fluidity of power and social
relations, the complexity of intersecting differences and socio-cultural contexts, the ways that social practices
and processes might be historically embedded and taken-for-granted, as well as to trace, map and quantify
patterns of inequality that are intersecting, multiple and contextual.
Research in the field of equity in higher education has noted that widening participation policy discourses
tend to focus on outreach and access, projecting the problem as ‘out there’ - outside universities paying little attention to participation in higher education,. This ignores the ways that universities are often
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deeply complicit in perpetuating inequalities and exclusions through standardising and homogenizing
technologies, related to aspirations for ‘excellence’. Indeed, some researchers have uncovered the ways
that the discourses of ‘inclusion’ operate as a form of symbolic violence, forcing those seen as ‘excluded’
to conform to the conventions, expectations and values of dominant frameworks and identities and to
participate in a process of ‘transformation’ into normalised personhoods (Archer, 2003). The limited forms
of support provided to students from under-represented backgrounds tend to be remedial in nature,
informed by polarising discourses (Williams, 1997), designed to ‘fix’ and re/form those students identified
as ‘non-standard’ into ‘legitimate’ students. Similarly, new technologies of managerialism (such as key
performance indicators, targets and workload formula) are used to regulate the practices and identities of
teachers, researchers and professional staff. Students and staff thus learn that to be a ‘participant’ in higher
education requires the continual working of and on the self, to conform to the institutional requirements
and expectations which are framed by external technologies of regulation connected to neoliberal forms of
globalisation (such as university world rankings).
Hegemonic policies and practices work to silence and make difference and inequality invisible, often
through references to social inclusion, widening participation and diversity. Difference tends to be reduced
to the marketing images of happy university students from ‘Other’ kinds of backgrounds. Diversity is often
constructed as unproblematic and desirable, whilst difference is to be controlled through standardisation
and disciplining processes. The anxiety about the closeness of the ‘Other’ to those deemed to be legitimate
university participants is often expressed through narratives about the ‘dumbing down’ of HE pedagogies, the
‘feminisation of HE’ and the assumed lack of discipline, passion for learning and aspiration often associated
with students constructed as non-standard from Other social backgrounds. Those seen as deserving of
higher education must conform to and master the normalising and disciplining practices of HE pedagogies,
participation and practices.
We need a praxis-based approach to equity - that brings interdisciplinary and critical research in dialogue
with policy and practice, in a reciprocal, iterative and collaborative framework. The field of research in equity
in higher education must be brought into closer relation with equity policy and practice to build collaborative
processes that aim to uncover and challenge the exclusionary effects of technologies of regulation,
standardisation and homogenisation. Such a praxis-oriented framework requires critical and reflexive
attention to the affective, cultural, subjective and symbolic dimensions of higher educational access and
participation, to processes of misrecognition, as well as to forms of redistribution.
Biography
Penny Jane Burke is Global Innovation Chair of Equity and co-Director of the Centre of Excellence for
Equity in Higher Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is also Professor of Education at the
University of Roehampton, London, where she is co-Founder and co-Director of the Paulo Freire Institute-UK
(PFI-UK) and Research in Inequalities, Policy and Education. She is passionately dedicated to developing
methodological, theoretical and pedagogical frameworks that support critical understanding and practice
of equity and social justice in the field of higher education studies and has been asked to speak widely at
high profile events nationally and internationally. She was awarded a full-time Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) PhD studentship from 1998-2001, which resulted in the publication of her sole-authored
book Accessing Education effectively widening participation (2002, Trentham Books). Her co-authored
book Reconceptualising Lifelong Learning: Feminist Interventions (Burke and Jackson, 2007, Routledge)
was nominated for the 2008 Cyril O. Houle World Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education. Her
most recent sole-authored book is The Right to Higher Education: Beyond Widening Participation (2012,
Routledge) and she is currently working on Changing Pedagogical Spaces in Higher Education (Burke,
Crozier and Misiaszek) to be published by Routledge in 2016 as part of the SRHE’s book series. Penny was
recipient of the prestigious Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship award in 2008 and
received the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement for Education award in 1998. She is the Access and
Widening Participation Network co-Convenor for the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE), a
member of SRHE Governing Council, and a member of the select Scientific Committee of Euredocs. She
is Editor of Teaching in Higher Education, and a member of SRHE Publications Committee. She served on
the ESRC panel of the ‘Future of Higher Education’ steer for the ESRC Large Grant and Research Centre
competition 2014, and is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. Penny has also held the post
of Professor of Education at University of Sussex and Reader in Education at the Institute of Education,
University of London (where she was Head of School, Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Chair of
the Widening Participation Committee and Course Leader of the MA in Higher and Professional Education).
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Reflective Teaching in Higher Education
Dr Kelly Coate, King’s Learning Institute, King’s College London
Those of us who research higher education, and universities in particular, are endlessly offered rich sources
of data from one of the most enduring and fascinating institutions in the world. Higher education is an
unusual site of research, given the wide range of disciplines that can be employed and the diversity of
approaches that can be taken. It is unusual for other reasons too: here in the SRHE we continue to develop
as a very strong community of higher education specialists, but we know that almost anyone who works in
academia might fancy trying their hand at doing higher education research, most likely in their classrooms
but increasingly with other groups such as administrators or managers. Some of us may despair at the lack
of knowledge and depth that higher education research ‘amateurs’ bring to bear on the field, but others of
us encourage novices to get involved, mainly through the postgraduate programmes in academic practice
that have become embedded in many institutions. Therefore another distinctive feature of higher education
research is that we speak to many audiences through our publications. Mainly - as in common with other
disciplinary specialists - we like to talk to each other, but our books and articles are increasingly used in those
academic practice programmes just mentioned, and so a wide range of other disciplinary experts are now
engaging with our work.
It is not just the textbooks on teaching (eg Ashwin et al 2015) that end up in the hands of our colleagues
across our institutions, but it is also the scholarly output of many of the speakers here today. We share this
work with others in order to encourage reflection on academic practice and to promote change. I will hesitate
before using the somewhat dreaded term ‘impact’, but I do believe that most of us are here because we
value the role that higher education plays in society and we want to continue making positive changes for
students and staff in universities. Our belief in the value of higher education then becomes something we
want to share with our colleagues who may work in universities but who may identify more with their own
disciplinary communities than with their employing institutions.
Yet those of us who do try to promote critical reflection on our practices in higher education soon discover
how challenging it is to shift entrenched views as we bump up against old habits and traditions. The ‘new’
and the ‘old’ exists side-by-side in universities and this dichotomy engenders another unique feature of higher
education research. Particularly in the contemporary context, those of us working in universities are facing
enormous prospects of change, yet much of our day-to-day lives continue on in ways that would still be
recognisable even to medieval scholars. There are a number of aspects of university life where it is possible
to talk in terms of radical, unprecedented change while at the same time we continue on with very familiar
practices.
Just to give a quick flavour: technology is one obvious example of an aspect of university life that prompts
excited discussions about how a radically new approach to higher education is on the horizon. Technology
does offer the potential for teachers to transform their practice, for example, and yet within universities
blackboard and chalk are still sometimes used as teaching tools (unlike primary schools). The university itself
is another enduring feature of higher education in spite of decades of discussion about its imminent ruin
and death. The university as an institution might continue to exist today, but those of us researching higher
education tend to write from quite defensive positions, lamenting the neo-liberal influences on academic
life, managerial practices and the corporatization of universities. We note the lack of an articulation of
humanitarian values and a social justice ethos. As Bob Lingard argued at a recent conference in Lancaster,
the ‘world-class university’ as a concept is an empty signifier; or as my colleagues Alan Cribb and Sharon
Gewirtz suggest, the ‘hollowed-out universities’ of today lack intrinsic value and have ‘no distinctive social
role and no ethical raison-d’etre’ (Cribb & Gewirtz 2013: 340).
These paradoxes require a fine balancing act: we need to be cognisant of the importance of tradition, wary of
over-hyped claims that radical change is on the way, and yet maintain the ability to foster purposeful change
in the face of challenges to our core values. Working with those outside of the field of higher education
research is necessary but difficult. Part of my motivation for ruminating on the value and impact of higher
education research is because I believe it can and should encourage reflection and change amongst the
wider academic community. Those who are not thinking, reading, reflecting and researching on higher
education are allowing the value of universities to be ignored and eroded. Here in the SRHE there have
been many discussions over a number of years about how we can turn our research into a positive force
for change, particularly in relation to policy. I am suggesting we can also use our research more effectively
23
to influence thinking and inform practice amongst our colleagues. We need our audiences to be broad so
that together we can re-assert the role of universities in a contemporary climate which demands a clear
articulation of purpose.
These paradoxes require a fine balancing act: we need to be cognisant of the importance of tradition, wary of
over-hyped claims that radical change is on the way, and yet maintain the ability to foster purposeful change
in the face of challenges to our core values. Working with those outside of the field of higher education
research is necessary but difficult. Part of my motivation for ruminating on the value and impact of higher
education research is because I believe it can and should encourage reflection and change amongst the
wider academic community. Those who are not thinking, reading, reflecting and researching on higher
education are allowing the value of universities to be ignored and eroded. Here in the SRHE there have
been many discussions over a number of years about how we can turn our research into a positive force
for change, particularly in relation to policy. I am suggesting we can also use our research more effectively
to influence thinking and inform practice amongst our colleagues. We need our audiences to be broad so
that together we can re-assert the role of universities in a contemporary climate which demands a clear
articulation of purpose.
References
Ashwin, P. et al (2015) Reflective Teaching in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.
Cribb, A. and Gewirtz, S. (2013) The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing institutional and
academic norms in UK higher education. Discourse 34(3): 338-350.
Lingard, B. (2015) ‘Conceptualising and researching the impact of global higher education policies on
practices in universities.’ Paper presented at the Exploring the policy-practice nexus in higher education
research Conference, 4th June 2015, University of Lancaster.
Biography
Kelly Coate is Director of the King’s Learning Institute, King’s College London. She was previously a
lecturer in higher education at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where she ran the MA in Academic
Practice. Prior to that, she was a researcher and lecturer at the UCL Institute of Education, where she taught
on a number of programmes including the MBA in Higher Education Management. She is a co-convenor
of the SRHE’s Digital University Network and a member of Council. Her publications are in the areas of
internationalisation of higher education, the higher education curriculum, and gender in higher education. She
is a contributor to the new book, Reflective Teaching in Higher Education (Ashwin et al 2015) published by
Bloomsbury.
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PA R T I C I PA N T S ’ L I S T
Asma Ahsan
Patrick Ainley
Mary Andall-Stanberry
Deborah Anderson
Valerie Anderson
Fabio Arico
Pauline Armsby
Paul Ashwin
Veronica Bamber
Ana Baptista
Sally Barnes
Ronald Barnett
Madeleine Barrows
Denise Batchelor
Ann-Marie Bathmaker
Patrick Baughan
Fran Beaton
Heike Behle
Ibrar Bhatt
Paul Blackmore
Richard Blackwell
Andrew Boggs
Alex Bols
Rosemary Borup
David Boud
Julie Bounford
Catherine Bovill
Fiona Boyle
Corinne Boz
John Brennan
Angela Brew
Gary Browning
Richard Budd
Rebecca Bunting
Robert Burgess
Penny Jane Burke
Sue Burkill
Olga Burukina
Tina Byrom
Martha Caddell
Helen Carasso
Vincent Carpentier
Franco Carta
Deesha Chadha
Matthew Cheeseman
Heather Clay
Sue Clegg
Sara Clethero
Deanne Clouder
Kelly Coate
Helen Corkill
Carol Costley
Annika Coughlin
Paul Coyle
Mary Curnock Cook
Rob Cuthbert
Vaneeta-Marie D’Andrea
Miriam David
Jason Davies
Richard Davies
Carole Davis
Pam Denicolo
UCL Institute of Education, London
University of Greenwich
Canterbury Christ Church University
Kingston University
University of Portsmouth
University of East Anglia
University of Westminster
Lancaster University
Queen Margaret University
Queen Mary University of London
University of Bristol
UCL Institute of Education, London
Academy of Social Sciences
Heythrop College
University of Birmingham
City University London
University of Kent
Institute for Employment Research (IER)
Lancaster University
King´s College London
Southampton Solent University
University of Oxford, Department of Education
GuildHE
Staffordshire University
University of Technology Sydney
University of East Anglia
University of Glasgow
Queen Margaret University
Anglia Ruskin University
Open University
Macquarie University
Oxford Brookes University
University of Bristol
Buckinghamshire New University
SRHE President
University of Roehampton
University of Exeter
Moscow State Institute for Tourism Industry
Nottingham Trent University
Open University
University of Oxford
UCL Institute of Education, London
SRHE
King´s College London
University of Sheffield
Middlesex University Business School
Leeds Beckett University
University of West London (London College of Music)
Coventry University
King´s College London
University of Bedfordshire
Middlesex University
UCL Institute of Education, London
National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education
UCAS
University of the West of England
University of the Arts
UCL Institute of Education, London
University College London
Aberystwyth University
Middlesex University
University of Surrey/Reading
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25
Camila Devis-Rozental
Bournemouth University
[email protected]
Marcia Devlin
Federation University Australia
[email protected]
Claire Donovan
Brunel University London
[email protected]
Dawn Duke
University of Surrey
[email protected]
Les Ebdon
OFFA
[email protected]
Sue Eccles
Bournemouth University
[email protected]
Heather Eggins [email protected]
Noel Entwistle
University of Edinburgh
[email protected]
Linda Evans
University of Leeds
[email protected]
Gillian Evans
University of Cambridge
[email protected]
Joelle Fanghanel
University of West London
[email protected]
Ourania Filippakou
University of Hull
[email protected]
Peter Fine
UCL Eastman Dental Institute
[email protected]
Michael Finn
Liverpool Hope University
[email protected]
Abbi Flint
Higher Education Academy
[email protected]
Alan Floyd
University of Reading
[email protected]
Karen Foley
Open University
[email protected]
John Francis
Brunel University
[email protected]
Abhijit Ganguly
University of Northwest Europe, Netherlands [email protected]
Bryan Gopaul
University of Rochester
[email protected]
Martin Gough
University of Liverpool
[email protected]
Lesley Gourlay
UCL Institute of Education, London
[email protected]
Sarah Graham
University of Sunderland
[email protected]
Rob Gresham
SRHE
[email protected]
Didi Griffioen
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
[email protected]
Andrew Gunn
University of Leeds
[email protected]
Elizabeth Halford
Quality Assurace Agency
[email protected]
Sally Hancock
University of York
[email protected]
Gunnar Handal
University of Oslo
[email protected]
Julian Hargreaves
University of Roehampton
[email protected]
Neil Harrison
University of the West of England
[email protected]
Caroline Hart
Sheffield Hallam University
[email protected]
Lee Harvey
SRHE Fellow
[email protected]
Richard Harvey
University of East Anglia
[email protected]
Stylianos Hatzipanagos
King´s College London
[email protected]
David Hay
King´s College London
[email protected]
Annette Hayton
University of Bath
[email protected]
Nicolaas Heerens
University of Exeter
[email protected]
Emily Henderson
UCL Institute of Education, London
[email protected]
Mary Henkel
Brunel University
[email protected]
Ivette Hernandez
UCL Institute of Education, London
[email protected]
Monica-Cristiana Hess
University of Chichester
[email protected]
Helen Higson
Aston University
[email protected]
Yvonne Hillier
University of Brighton
[email protected]
Nicholas Hillman
Higher Education Policy Institute
[email protected]
Sarah Horton-Walsh
Coventry University
[email protected]
Jeroen Huisman
Ghent University
[email protected]
Donna Hurford
SDU Universitetspædagogik [email protected]
Jill Jameson
University of Greenwich
[email protected]
Ben Johnson
HEFCE
[email protected]
Paul Johnson
Director Institute for Fiscal Studies
[email protected]
Anna Jones
Glasgow Caledonian University
[email protected]
Mary-Jane Jones
Bournemouth University
[email protected]
Peter Kahn
University of Liverpool
[email protected]
Abdul Kaiser
London South Bank University
[email protected]
Camille Kandiko Howson King´s College London
[email protected]
Mary-Louise Kearney
Editor, Special Issues Studies in HE [email protected]
Ewart Keep
University of Oxford
[email protected]
Eileen Kennedy
UCL Institute of Education, London
[email protected]
Mark Kerrigan
Anglia Ruskin University
[email protected]
Terri Kim
University of East London
[email protected]
Ian Kinchin
University of Surrey
[email protected]
Virginia King
Coventry University
[email protected]
Manja Klemenčič
Harvard University
[email protected]
26
Henry Kwok
Sue Law
Mary Lea
Mark Leach
Carole Leathwood
Anne Lee
Rebecca Lees
Liudvika Leisyte
Dave Lewis
Carenza Lewis
Dina Lewis
Moira Sally Lewitt
Eunice Li
Sian Lindsay
Xu Liu
William Locke
Kirsteen Macdonald
Bruce Macfarlane
Simon Macklin
Janice Malcolm
Irene Malcolm
Arthur Male
Nicola Manches
Simon Marginson
Alexander Masardo
Frederico Matos
Marian Mayer
Helen Mcallister
Colin Mccaig
Tristan Mccowan
Ian Mcnay
Debbie Mcvitty
Vincent Meek
Graham Megson
Justine Mercer
Viviana Meschitti
Hazel Messenger
Robin Middlehurst
Chris Millward
Catherine Minett-Smith
Sarah Montano
Catherine Montgomery
Louise Morley
Anna Mountford-Zimdars
Rajani Naidoo
Erna Nairz-Wirth
Gillian Nicholls
Jon Nixon
Paula Nottingham
Martin Oliver
Lena Ornberg
Susan Orr
David Palfreyman
Gareth Parry
Helen Perkins
Victoria Perselli
John Pratt
Alicia Prowse
Jim Pugh
Kate Purcell
Kathleen Quinlan
Julie Rattray
The Open University of Hong Kong
University of Leicester
Open University
WonkHE
London Metropolitan University
Independent
Kingston University
Center for Higher Education, TU Dortmund
University of Leeds
University of Cambridge
University of Hull
University of the West of Scotland
UCL Institute of Education, London
City University London
UCL Institute of Education, London
UCL Institute of Education, London
Middlesex University
University of Southampton
GSM London
University of Kent
Heriot-Watt University
Doctoral School UCL Institute of Education
SRHE
UCL Institute of Education, London
University of Bath
King´s College London
Bournemouth University
University of the Arts London
Sheffield Hallam University
UCL Institute of Education, London
University of Greenwich
National Union of Students
University of Melbourne
University of Westminister
University of Warwick
Birkbeck, University of London
London Metropolitan University Guildhall Faculty
of Business and Law
Kingston University
HEFCE
University of Bedfordshire
University of Birmingham
University of Hull
University of Sussex
King’s Learning Institute,King´s College London
University of Bath
Vienna University of Economics and Business - Education Sciences Group
University of Surrey
Hong Kong Institute of Higher Education
Middlesex University
UCL Institute of Education, London
Lund University
University of the Arts London
University of Oxford, New College
University of Sheffield
Society for Research in Higher Education
Kingston University
University of East London
Manchester Metropolitan University
Staffordshire University
University of Warwick
University of Oxford. Oxford Learning Institute
University of Durham
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27
Julie Reeves
University of Southampton
John Richardson
Open University
Alan Roberts
National Union of Students
Bruce Roberts
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Patricia Rogers
Coventry University
Fiona Ross
Leadership Foundation for Higher Education
Nicola Savvides
King’s College London
Jason Schaub
Buckinghamshire New University
Rebecca Schendel
UCL Institute of Education, London
The Baroness Sharp
House of Lords
Of Guildford
Michael Shattock
UCL Institute of Education, London
Lynn Shaw
University of Kent
Sue Shepherd
University of Kent
Robin Shields
University of Bath
Eunice Simmons
Nottingham Trent University
Christina Slade
Bath Spa University
Francois Smit
SRHE
Karen Smith
University of Hertfordshire
Alan Smithers
University of Buckingham
Maureen Spencer
Middlesex University
Jacqueline Stevenson
Sheffield Hallam University
Mary Stuart
University of Lincoln
David Sweeney
HEFCE
Roshani Swift
Ted Tapper
Fellow, SRHE
Pam Tatlow
Million+
John Taylor
University of Liverpool
William Taylor
SRHE Past President Kate Thomas
Birkbeck, University of London
Voldemar Tomusk
Open Society Foundation
Sheila Trahar
University of Bristol
Paul Trowler
Lancaster University
Vicki Trowler
University of Edinburgh
David Turner
University of Glamorgan
Belinda Tynan
Open University
Charikleia Tzanakou
University of Warwick
Roeland Van Der Rijst
Leiden University
Greg Wade
Universities UK
Shan Wareing
London South Bank University
Richard Watermeyer
University of Warwick
Daniel Weinbren
Open University
Saranne Weller
University of the Arts London
Celia Whitchurch
UCL Institute of Education, London
Ian White
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Denise Whitelock
Open University
Sarah Wilkins
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
Gareth Williams
UCL Institute of Education, London
Joanna Williams
University of Kent
Matthew Williamson
Queen Mary University of London
Angela Wilson
Graeme Wise
National Union of Students
Gina Wisker
University of Brighton
Steve Woodfield
Kingston University
John Wyatt
SRHE Fellow
Alexander Yandovsky
Senkevich State Institute for Tourism
Industry in Moscow
28
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C O N T I N U I N G T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N A N D E N G A G I N G W I T H S R H E
Facilitating discourse and providing opportunities for researchers to meet together and share research
interests are some of the core activities of the Society. There are many ways to engage with SRHE and
much as we are keen to continue to grow our membership, this is a personal choice for researchers. All of
our events, activities, publications and most of our awards are open to all. Here are just some of the ways in
which you can engage with SRHE and participate in discussions and events.
SRHE Networks
The Society convenes and supports 12 special interest networks. Each network offers a varied programme
of at least 3 seminars a year with invited speakers. For the current programme of SRHE network events visit
www.srhe.ac.uk/networks/
Academic Practice
Access and Widening Participation
Digital University
Employability, Enterprise and Work-based Learning.
Higher Education Close-up
Higher Education Policy
International Research and Researchers
Newer Researchers
Post-Compulsory and Higher Education
Postgraduate Issues
South West Regional Network
Student Experience
Professional Development Workshops
The Society runs a full programme of professional development workshops for newer and mid- career
researchers. For the current programme of SRHE PDP events visit www.srhe.ac.uk/events/
Research Awards
The Society directly funds research through three different types of awards:
Annual Research Awards, Scoping Awards and Newer Researcher Awards.
www.srhe.ac.uk/research/
Publications
The Society has 4 journals and a book series publishing a wide range of research:
Studies in Higher Education
Research into Higher Education Abstracts
Policy Reviews in Higher Education (from 2016)
Higher Education Quarterly
SRHE/Routledge Book Series: Research into Higher Education
www.srhe.ac.uk/publications/
SRHE Conference
The Society runs the largest UK based Conference on higher education research.
SRHE Annual Research Conference 9-11 December 2015
SRHE Newer Researchers Conference 8 December 2015
Celtic Manor, Newport in South Wales, United Kingdom
Converging Concepts in Global Higher Education Research:
Local, national and international perspectives
www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2015/
SRHE NEWS and SRHE Blog
www.srheblog.com
Finally share your ideas, thoughts, reflections and passions by writing for SRHE NEWS or preparing a piece
for the SRHE blog.
Contact Editor Rob Cuthbert [email protected]
29
researchers. This is attended by researchers
from over 35 countries and showcases
current research across every aspect of
higher education.
• Funds a series of dedicated research
awards to members, non-members, and
newer researchers, in order to encourage
and support new research into higher
education.
SRHE membership benefits include:
• is a specialist publisher of higher education
research, journals and books, amongst
them Studies in Higher Education, Higher
Education Quarterly, Research into Higher
Education Abstracts and a long running
book series.
• operates a regular programme of
network events/seminars and professional
development workshops throughout the year
for researchers and practitioners working in
higher education from every discipline.
• runs the largest annual UK- based higher
education research conference and parallel
conference for postgraduate and newer
• Free attendance at SRHE network and
•
•
•
•
•
professional development events
Reduced rate journal subscriptions and
books from a range of publisher
catalogues
Discounted rates for the SRHE conference
Free subscription to Research into HE
Abstracts & SRHE News
The opportunity to apply for member
research awards
On-line access to the latest issues of
a suite of higher education journals
To find out more visit www.srhe.ac.uk and
click on ‘Join us’